Archive for the 'Notable Smacktalk' Category

If you’ve ever wondered why CCP seems unusually committed to reprimanding and banning folks who make real world threats (“I’m going to find out where you live in real life and come kill your pets!”), here’s why:

Mexican World of Warcraft player Bronco Carson reported to local police on Saturday that 3 men broke into his home and beat his arms with clubs and smashed his computer. It was supposedly in retaliation for Carson stalking and repeatedly killing one of the attackers wife’s character during computer video game play.

Carson admitted to police that he had been “making it hard for her to get far in the game.” He said that after repeated online threats from the woman, she sent her husband and friends over to his house to “take care of him.” Carson later said that he had made the mistake of telling her where he lived and “if her husband was man enough to just come meet me to settle this.”

2 weeks leading up to the assault he said he had been harassed by a few characters constantly during game play. “I knew that I might be messed with in the game but I didn’t really expect her husband to come looking for me. I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

Carson suffered 2 broken fingers and a fractured wrist during the assault. They also destroyed his computer and entertainment center before leaving. No arrests have been made in connection with the assault.

OK, kiddies, what have we learned?

1) Even if you like to play aggressively, spread the love around. Focusing your gankage on one person is (a) being a dick and (b) earns you bad karma, which can come home to roost in unexpected ways.

2) Yeah, it’s only a game. Until you start stalking another man’s wife and insulting his manhood when he tries to defend her. Then it can get personal. Not to mention violent.

3) If you’re going to be an online dickhead who hides behind the safety and anonymity of the internet so that your asshole behavior doesn’t have real world consequences, then (for fuck’s sake!) don’t forget the “hiding” part. Giving your online victims your address and taunting them to come over and fight you? Survey says: STUPID!

4) It’s only a game. Until it gets serious. Which unhappy day may come for the other guy before it comes for you.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing against gameplay that pisses people off and I’m not defending the real-world gank that Mr. Carson suffered. (Quite the contrary, those boys need some jail time.) But I do think it’s worth pointing out that to a very real extent, Mr. Carson appears to have been a victim of his own extreme griefing and smacktalking.

Went out to an asteroid belt today to test my new gun setup, when I saw a Hulk mining into a jet can. Well, a can like that’s too juicy a salvage target to pass up, even if Hulks do tend to carry Tech II drones and get nasty with ’em.

Swooped in, flipped the jettisoned ore into an Ironfleet can, got it on the tractor, and began to drag it off to a safe distance. Nope, that’s not gonna work, here come the swarm of Vespa IIs, time to go.

Then comes the private convo with Moryia’s very optimistic hauler alt / companion:

Torredon Schreck > what you upto
﻿Jim Bridger > Salvaging, as per usual
﻿Torredon Schreck > stealing you mean
﻿Jim Bridger > Naw, if I meant that I would have said that
﻿Torredon Schreck > you stole from me a few minutes ago
﻿Jim Bridger > Don’t think so, you’re not on my agro list
﻿Torredon Schreck > check moryia evenstar
﻿﻿Jim Bridger > Yeah, I salvaged some ore from a can with her name on it, so?
﻿Torredon Schreck > in my gang, you stole from hiim you steal from me
﻿Jim Bridger > LOL, you keep using that word
﻿﻿Jim Bridger > Say, did you need something or did you just call me up to put ugly names on my chosen style of gameplay?
﻿Torredon Schreck > come back to the roid belt
﻿Jim Bridger > LOL, for what purpose?
﻿Torredon Schreck > so i can try and kill you again
﻿Jim Bridger > Right, and this is in my interest as a professional salvager exactly how?
﻿Torredon Schreck > maybe you might get something out of it
﻿Jim Bridger > Yeah, well, I prefer to pick my battles, thank you very much
﻿Torredon Schreck > where are you hiding atm?
﻿Jim Bridger > HIding? I’m busy salvaging.
﻿Torredon Schreck > where
﻿Jim Bridger > I don’t mean to be rude, but are you stupid? Why do you imagine I would tell you?
﻿Torredon Schreck > just asking, to see if you are that stupid
﻿Jim Bridger > LOL
﻿Jim Bridger > Sorry, no
﻿Torredon Schreck > so your not THAT STUPID THEN
﻿Torredon Schreck > SORRY CAPS LOCK
﻿Jim Bridger > No, but you are surely very optimistic to imagine I might be
﻿Torredon Schreck > its worth a try
﻿Jim Bridger > I know that feeling
Jim Bridger> After all I just took my salvage destroyer into drone range of a Hulk
﻿Torredon Schreck > so do all of your corp go around “salvaging ” other ppls kit?
﻿Jim Bridger > Check the corp description, or the blog at ironfleet.com
﻿Jim Bridger > It will answer all your questions
﻿Jim Bridger > Short answer: if it floats in space, we salvage it
﻿Torredon Schreck > ok i see
﻿Jim Bridger > Been a pleasure bantering with you, but I gotta go. Ironfleet out.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Marlenus went back in a Badger II and hauled the ore, which they had left unmolested in the Ironfleet jetcan. So the operation was, as usual, a success.

I avoid lag, I try to be careful, and I’m pretty willing to accept losses imposed by an imperfect gaming environment. So, in about a year of play, I’ve never felt the need to petition.

So, today. Saw a full can of ore. Went to haul some. Hauled some. Went back. Hauled some more. Docked.

Looked at local. Whoa, smack city!

﻿LordThyGod > fuck you
﻿Takeda Shiko > Uh?
﻿LordThyGod > Martelenus is stealing ym ore byt the transprt full!@
﻿Takeda Shiko > That was random and… vulgar…
﻿LordThyGod > Marlenus
﻿LordThyGod > So do veterans often steal ore in 30 mil ships?
﻿LordThyGod > bitch ass baiter
﻿Takeda Shiko > zowie
﻿Ebodhisatva > lol
﻿Takeda Shiko > Maybe he’s guilty as charged?
﻿Ebodhisatva > why should he?
﻿Ebodhisatva > he’d rather get blown to pieces
﻿Marlenus > LOL, was busy hauling ore
﻿Ebodhisatva > roflmao
﻿Baron Kalan > /emote sniggers
﻿Ebodhisatva > so you find a nice filled can
﻿Ebodhisatva > and just take it
﻿LordThyGod > coke on a can of quafe and die loser
﻿Marlenus > Was a couple of full cans full, needed multiple trips
﻿Takeda Shiko > Marlenus, that’s just wrong.
﻿Marlenus > Obviously, I disagree
﻿Takeda Shiko > I’m sorry that you think it’s funny
﻿Ebodhisatva > that is indeed like leaving your brand new porsche running while being away
﻿LordThyGod > thats my hard work jerk
﻿Ebodhisatva > man i’d take it for a spin
﻿Marlenus > No, the funny part was that folks think I’d be reading local while I was busy working
﻿Takeda Shiko > Obviously, you’re a jackass, too… but whatever
﻿Marlenus > Salvage is my profession, I take it very seriously
﻿Ebodhisatva > lord, get some secure cans
﻿Ebodhisatva > than you’ll be safe
﻿Ebodhisatva > that is like making sure your new porsche is locked when you leave it
﻿LordThyGod > THIEVING IS YOUR PROFESSION
﻿Takeda Shiko > Salvage is blowing stuff up and using a salvager… ripping people off is stealing. And it reflects on you and your corp.
﻿LordThyGod > you just liek to pick fight dont you?
﻿Takeda Shiko > *Shrugs* Doesn’t matter to me too much though… different strokes and all that.
﻿LordThyGod > want me to fire so you can come back in a BS
﻿Ebodhisatva > it’s even better, you get to kill him
﻿Marlenus > Agree that it reflects on my corp — have you read the corporate description? This is what we do.
﻿Ebodhisatva > he steals and you can kill him!
﻿LordThyGod > I hope you get banned
﻿Ebodhisatva > that is really neat!
﻿LordThyGod > Not when he has 7 months on me
﻿Takeda Shiko > Unfortunately, Lord, this game has a lot of room for griefers.
﻿LordThyGod > gotta pick on the newbs
﻿LordThyGod > what a loser
﻿Ebodhisatva > just kill him!
﻿Ebodhisatva > get some friends and hunt him down!
﻿LordThyGod > a yerar in the game and he cant make money on his own he has to steal ore
﻿Takeda Shiko > What’s sad is he’s doing it in Higher Sec spcae
﻿Takeda Shiko > space*
﻿Takeda Shiko > You expect this in low sec space
﻿Takeda Shiko > “Check me out, I just ripped off a newb! Look at all my SCORDITE!”
﻿Ebodhisatva > ow man, if it is red in my overview, he’s screwed
﻿Ebodhisatva > you can even wardec him
﻿LordThyGod > I know
﻿Ebodhisatva > it’ll cost 50 mill, but it feels soooo good
﻿Ebodhisatva > you can hunt him down the whole frecking week
﻿abissshooter > lol
﻿Ebodhisatva > hell, you can even give privateer alliance 50 mill to do it for you
﻿Dranoel > I’d kick your ass if this were RL.
﻿Ebodhisatva > man, he won’t ever leave station
﻿Ebodhisatva > ever
﻿Dranoel > Nope
﻿Takeda Shiko > Yeah, most jerkies that my old corp put a hit out on just sat in a station and played an alt
﻿Takeda Shiko > wow… Marlenus is the CEO of the corp… of 7 members… why am I not surprised?

So far, so normal. A bunch of smack, I defend myself lightly, that triggers a lot more smack, I can deal with that. But then came the interesting part. Tell me what you think:

﻿Dranoel > Thieves in RL get thier faces stommped in for stealing from me.
﻿Dranoel > Gonna come out now that the timers over?
﻿Dranoel > OR are you gonna keep hiding in your T@ ship
﻿Dranoel > T2 indy just for stealing ore
﻿Takeda Shiko > Baron, the point in question isn’t that he stole ore… it’s that he is a much more powerful veteran character stealing from a newer character in High Sec space… it’s just… tasteless
﻿Dranoel > Thats dedication to being an asshole
﻿Dranoel > Don’t worry, my friends in ISD will make him lose far more isk than he will gain from that ore. :D
﻿
…

﻿Dranoel > aw he came abck!
﻿﻿Dranoel > Gotta run from em cause I’m not in a Osprey?
﻿Marlenus > Right, because a transport ought to stay and fight with a battlecruiser, that would be very smart.
﻿Dranoel > ^ Ore thief
﻿Marlenus > Salvager, if you please
﻿Dranoel > Smart is not stealing from ISD
﻿Dranoel > I don’t please
﻿Marlenus > Smart is not getting banned for threatening to abuse the powers of the volunteers
﻿Dranoel > I hope you die a firey death at the hands of my friends.
﻿Dranoel > I’m not threatening
﻿Dranoel > I’m promising
﻿Dranoel > They volunteered

Now, don’t get me wrong. So far as I know, the ISD volunteers do good work and they don’t have many special powers to abuse, if any. So I consider this an empty threat.

But I do know that CCP Games cannot afford, just now, to have people running around claiming “special connections” and threatening people with the abuse of those connections. The game doesn’t need that.

Or so it seems to me. I filed a petition and attached the logs, just in case.

Back to local, where (if you can believe it) they were still smacking me.

﻿Marlenus > OK, petition filed
﻿Takeda Shiko > Wow… my first petition?
﻿Takeda Shiko > or just against Dranoel?
﻿Marlenus > You’ve done nothing petitionable that I know of
﻿Dranoel > Prolly me but it wont go anywhere.
﻿Takeda Shiko > Well, i DID use a naughty word.
﻿Marlenus > But claiming to be in ISD or to abuse ISD “powers” is banning offense
﻿Takeda Shiko > *blushes*
﻿Marlenus > Lotsa naughty words in the world, I’m a big boy
﻿Takeda Shiko > Fair enough
﻿Dranoel > Telling you that my friends in ISD are on the hunt for you, is not.
﻿Marlenus > But that’s not what you said. No worries, gms will sort it out. I don’t care if anything happens to you, I just want them to be aware that ISD is being used as a threat.
﻿Dranoel > I didn’t threaten you eith them
﻿Dranoel > I warned you
﻿Dranoel > i didn’t make the decision
﻿Marlenus > Not my call

Severe offenses may result in an immediate ban without warning; however, warnings may be given for first time offenses, followed by account suspensions of varying degree and ultimately a permanent ban if a player:

* a. Presents himself as a CCP employee, game master or other customer service representative, or a member of the EVE volunteer program.

And I’d say the claim that “Do you knwo I”m part of ISD?” sounds like presenting himself as a member of the Eve volunteer program.

One final gem from the smack, which continued at length, until a new party entered the system and became curious about it:

﻿Felgor > Did soemoen go boom?
﻿Daloron > nope someone did steal
﻿Marlenus > No, but some jettisoned ore went home to a hangar the mining ship never left from.
﻿Daloron > from a newb
﻿Takeda Shiko > I don’t think so, but marlenus ripped someone off.
﻿Marlenus > Mining barge does not equal newb I wouldn’t think.
﻿Felgor > Sounds like Marlenus will soon have a bounty on his head :P
﻿Takeda Shiko > psh… bounties are just collected by a buddy
﻿Dranoel > Brought a Badger II JUST to steal form me
﻿Marlenus > No point in salvaging jettisoned ore in a small ship.
﻿Raest > that’s the spirit
﻿Dranoel > If I had fired, he gets 15 mins to attack me in w/e ship he wants
﻿Marlenus > Ya gotta move that stuff in industrial quantities if you want to see a decent profit.
﻿Dranoel > I had planned on it but you stole it befor ei Could
﻿Dranoel > I was there in my BADGER II EMPTING THE CAN WHEN YOU STOELL IT!

So many comebacks, but I was laughing too hard to type. So I let it drop with a LOL, and moved on.

So I was minding my own business, autopiloting in a speed-fitted Executioner (frigate) around the galaxy collecting parts to build a couple of Gravity Capacitor Upgrade rigs (for faster scan probing). Suddenly through my cockpit window I notice a swarm of Hammerhead IIs chewing on each other.

Well, where the drones are swarming, salvage often follows. So I scroll out to get a sense of the tactical picture, and see a Curse attacking a Raven. Since the Curse is closing on the Raven, I select the Raven, hit “approach”, and hit my microwarp drive.

Beep beep! I felt like I was driving a little Nash Rambler with Roadrunner decals as I blew past the curse just as the Raven turned into a shiny yellow triangle. I whipped out my trusty wreck-opener (don’t leave home without it) and began stuffing battleship gear into my tiny frigate hold. Three Arbalest Siege Missile Launchers, an X-Large C5-L shield booster, some Tech II Magnetic Scattering Amplifiers, and I’m stuffed. No time to look over my shoulder and see whether this dearly departed battleship has friends, just hit the autopilot and GO GO GO! With another hearty “Beep beep!” and a cloud of thruster gas, I was Out Of There.

Inevitably, there was grumbling from the feller in the Curse. A convo request later and I’m hearing a demand and an insult. Not that the demand would have been satisfied in any case, but the insult made it a very short conversation:
Geoff C > return the stuff or face war noob
﻿Marlenus > Insult? Bye.

From time to time, I get jet can miners who seem to think that when I find jettisoned ore drifting dangerously close to their expensive mining barges, I’ll leave it marooned and drifting, alone and unloved, simply because they ask me to. I’m always civil to these people, but I never agree to their one-sided propositions.

Sometimes, the result is smack-talk. And sometimes, it’s attempted smack-talk via a machine translator. That’s so weird, and so fun, that I usually play along (and sometimes, play a little dumb) just to see what I get.

As this conversation begins, I’m in my Crane, approaching a jet can in the vicinity of a typical farmer-Covetor, flying three drones and no doubt equipped with civilian shield boosters, eight months old and member of State War Academy. During the course of it, I made several trips back to the hangar with a hold full of ore. At the end of it, Towering warped away:
﻿towering > plz Do not take my box ok?
﻿Your box? I do not understand
﻿towering > My mineral
﻿Marlenus > Your mineral is in your ship, how could I take it?
﻿towering > I do not hope to see you are red
﻿towering > Do you know?
﻿Marlenus > No, I don't understand
﻿towering > ....
﻿towering > You like very much thus?
﻿towering > What froom are you in ?
﻿Marlenus > You mean, salvaging jettisoned ore? Yes, I like it very much.
﻿Marlenus > I don't know what a froom is, sorry.
﻿towering > Which nation do you come from?
﻿Marlenus > United States, and you?
﻿towering > I feel sorrow for you
﻿Marlenus > LOL, why?
﻿towering > I do not like to be thus you are knowing
﻿Marlenus > You don't like to be thus what, you don't like mining?
﻿towering > I do not like to be bother by the person
﻿Marlenus > You're bothered by other players playing the game?
﻿towering > But I do not like to see your time is red
﻿Marlenus > I'm sorry that one of this game's features is something that you don't enjoy
﻿towering > .......
﻿towering > The game is very good But I hope that the person is better
﻿towering > Especially American
﻿towering > Do not close to me
﻿Marlenus > I don't understand what "better" has to do with it. What's better about not playing?
﻿towering > You what stuff very much do you know?
﻿Marlenus > I don't understand.
﻿towering > For God sake you can go to the another place
﻿Marlenus > But, this is where the ore is. Why would I go elsewhere?'
﻿towering > I wanted to eat the lunch you play slowly

So the bold newbie killers from The Griefer’s Alliance actually came and found me today, as I was tooling about in an unarmed Heron doing some exploration. Naturally enough I docked, and went on about my business on another computer screen, curious how patient they’d be.

Inevitably, we conversed in local. Tiny sample:
Philix > Dude ... come on even you know smack talks ghey
﻿Marlenus > And blowing up Ibises for a living is what, exactly?

Needless to say, he moved rapidly on to the topic of my obvious cowardice, based on my failure to to come out and fight three battlecruisers with my trusty probe launcher in one high slot and my salvager in the other.

Barathrum > Woe Sin is a thief!
Woe Sin > Why yes. Thank you.
Woe Sin > A guy's got to earn a living somehow.
Barathrum > Glad you admit to it
Barathrum > What a punk. I wasn't goona shoot at you if you had asked
Woe Sin > Asked? Asked what? I'm a thief, not a driveling supplicant.

Hi, folks, Marlenus here, CEO of Ironfleet and the guy you’ll hear from most at Ironfleet.com.

I’m a bit of an odd duck when it comes to ship preferences. I like cargo ships. The bigger the better.

My favorite thing to do with cargo ships is to scoop stuff, usually stuff that other people left floating in space. (You would be amazed at the goodies people leave floating in space.)

So there I was, conducting my daily sweep of the belts in my home system of the hour, when what to my wondering eye should appear but a bunch of frigates, mining into a pair of Giant Secure Cans. Only these were Giant Insecure Cans, because their navigation lights were flashing green.

Worthy salvage for Ironfleet.

A quick bookmark and warp to zero later: *scoop* *scoop* and Ironfleet is richer by two expensive containers and about 6000 cubic meters of Azure Plagioclase.

Initial response from former owners was confused but polite:

TheJudge UK > whats the point in that
﻿Marlenus > I'm sorry?
﻿TheJudge UK > well give the stuff back
﻿Marlenus > I don't understand.
﻿TheJudge UK > is that all you want to do is steal others containers
﻿Marlenus > All? Steal? By no means. But salvaging loose cans is indeed a favorite activity of mine.
﻿TheJudge UK > those cans where ours abd they where anchored
﻿Marlenus > Sorry friend, if they were anchored I could not have scooped them
﻿TheJudge UK > it sucks you want to take 500,000.00 worth of can from next to us
﻿TheJudge UK > holding 1000,000.00 worth ore
﻿Marlenus > Next to you had nothing to do with it, I sweep these belts every day for lost and jettisoned items, I scoop them all. I'm a salvager, it's what I do.
﻿TheJudge UK > maybe thats a side of the game we dont see
﻿Marlenus > I think so
﻿TheJudge UK > we have only been paying 4 days
﻿Marlenus > You need anchoring skill to use those cans safely, then nobody can touch them
﻿TheJudge UK > we didnt expect all our stuff that we mined to be robbed
﻿﻿Marlenus > Alas, you didn't anchor, you may have thought you did but you didn't
TheJudge UK > we did
﻿TheJudge UK > with passwords
﻿Marlenus > You should expect *anything* you jettison to be removed unless you anchor it.
﻿Marlenus > The password controls who can open the can
﻿Marlenus > You need to right click and "launch for corp" or "launch for self" in order to anchor
﻿TheJudge UK > obviously we need to understand more
﻿TheJudge UK > thanks
﻿Marlenus > Good luck!
﻿TheJudge UK > cheers
﻿Marlenus > Ironfleet out

It went downhill from there. I begin getting smacky convos:

TD MADEYE > im going to destroy your fuckin ship
﻿Marlenus > You should have shot when you had the chance? I waited....
﻿TD MADEYE > dont worry your gonna get it
﻿Marlenus > Thank you friend, indeed I shan't worry
﻿

Suddenly I’m being trailed by several frigates and a couple of destroyers, all of them locking me. Not sure what their plan is — I’m not flashing red to anyone — but the smack in local is getting hot. Retarded, but hot. Sample:

Aaeko > ran away eh?
﻿Marlenus > LOL, I sat there for ten minutes waiting for you guys to do something, then I went back to salvaging
﻿TD MADEYE > as soon as we had you in range you warped pussy
﻿TD MADEYE > what you did was not salvage it was stealing
﻿Marlenus > Matter of opinion
﻿TD MADEYE > we were there mining and you stole our shit
﻿Marlenus > I scooped some unanchored cans, it's true.
﻿Marlenus > But I do that every day, I keep the local belts clean
﻿TD FITZ > so fuck off from here asshole
﻿Marlenus > LOL, I *live* here, this is my home system

And then TheJudge could restrain himself no longer. Under the watchful eye of Concord — who were actually present in the belt at that moment, due to some unknown earlier mishap — I see:

TD FITZ > u like 2 get fuck in the ass
﻿Marlenus > He has *two*, count them TWO, insults in his repertoire!
﻿TD FITZ > i got more
﻿Marlenus > Don't strain yourself, I don't think you've worn these two out yet
﻿TD FITZ > ur sihp looks like a cow u like 2 fuck cows
﻿Marlenus > Whoo, I am humiliated now
﻿TD FITZ > ur mom looks likes a cow
﻿﻿Aaeko > Hey got a container here for you Marlenus, Its full of your mothers shitty knickers.
﻿TD FITZ > and ur sister
﻿TD FITZ > its true then
﻿Harris Hharav > bad form people
﻿Marlenus > But Harris, they're having so much fun!
﻿TD FITZ > he started
﻿TD FITZ > we r we r
﻿Marlenus > LOL, check the logs, the smack didn't start here
﻿DadVer20 > marlenus i must say sorry for them i tryed to explain to the you suffer from a small penis
﻿TD FITZ > it started when u stole our shit
﻿﻿TheJudge UK > OMG can you come and get you mum she has shit her self again
﻿TheJudge UK > get the fuck off me bitch
﻿Marlenus > Boys, the level of banter isn't really high enough to keep me interested, so I'm going AFK a bit. Don't let that stop you, though, I'm sure you have reserves of scatology you've not yet plumbed.
﻿

And that’s a typical few minute’s work for Ironfleet. (Although, to be fair, I usually get a better quality of smack, these guys were hindered by limited vocabulary and even more limited imagination.)